Xiran Jay Zhao is a Chinese-born Canadian author, Internet personality, and

cosplayer Cosplay, a portmanteau of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, ...

. Their debut novel, '' Iron Widow'', became a 1 ''New York Times'' Best Seller and won the 2021

BSFA Award The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) to honour works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members. More recently, m ...

for Best Book for Younger Readers.

Early life

Zhao immigrated to

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

from a small town in China in grade five. They are of

Hui The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the n ...

heritage on their father's side. They would imagine stories growing up, but did not put any on paper until they were encouraged to at an

anime convention An anime convention is an event or gathering with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Commonly, anime conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activ ...

when they were 15. They majored in health sciences with a focus on biochemical disease research at

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located ...

, graduating in 2020. They worked at a co-op before deciding an office job was not for them.

Career

In March 2020, Zhao signed a two-book deal with Penguin Teen Canada for a

young adult A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

(YA)

mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the meaning in Japanese is ...

reimagining of the rise of the Chinese

Empress Wu The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

. Rock the Boat, the children's imprint of

Oneworld Publications Oneworld Publications is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Novin Doostdar and Juliet Mabey originally to publish accessible non-fiction by experts and academics for the general market.anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

and my love for Chinese harem dramas". The first installment in the series, ''Iron Widow'', was published in September 2021 and reached 1 in the Young Adult Hardcover category of the ''New York Times'' Best Seller list. The second installment in the series, ''Iron Widow 2: Heavenly Tyrant'', is scheduled for release in spring 2023. In September 2020, Zhao went viral, first on a Twitter thread followed by their first YouTube video, for their criticisms of

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

's live-action ''

Mulan Hua Mulan () is a legendary folk heroine from the Northern and Southern dynasties era (4th to 6th century CE) of Chinese history. According to legend, Mulan took her aged father's place in the conscription for the army by disguising herself as ...

'' remake and its cultural inaccuracies. Zhao credits their presence on the Internet as a self-described "Chinese history memer" for the success of ''Iron Widow'', which was initially expected to only appeal to a niche audience. Jessica Singer, for ''

CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca ...

'' in August 2021, highlighted the impact of

BookTok BookTok is a subcommunity on the app TikTok, focused on books and literature. Creators make videos reviewing, discussing, and joking about the books they read. These books range in genre, but many creators tend to focus on young adult fiction, you ...

on sales of young adult fiction. Singer wrote that "books like ''Iron Widow'' by Canadian author Xiran Jay Zhao are already gaining popularity online, even before the book's release date in late September". Kara Savoy, Penguin Random House Canada's integrated marketing director, told Singer that "when Xiran did an unboxing video of their advanced copies a few weeks ago n TikTok the pre-sale numbers in the U.S. went up 600 per cent that week". At the beginning of 2021, Zhao landed their second book deal for ''Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor'', a middle grade contemporary fantasy with Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...

. It was released on 10 May 2022. The novel debuted at #4 on the ''New York Times'' Best Seller list in the Children's Middle Grade Hardcover category; it remained on the list for two weeks. Alec Scott, for ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', compared ''Zachary Ying'' to Zhao's ''Iron Widow'' and commented that "the two books speak to Zhao's obsessions – both with anime, the visual storytelling popularized in Japan that's gone global, and with Chinese history and mythology. ..In both novels, the mythic past gets translated into the future. ..For all their differences of mood, the novels rescue what is valuable to Zhao in Chinese history and myth, and project it forward – creating artistic acts of cultural reappropriation".

Awards and nominations

Bibliography

Young adult

* * (upcoming)

Middle grade

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zhao, Xiran Jay Living people 21st-century Canadian novelists 21st-century Chinese novelists Canadian LGBT novelists Canadian speculative fiction writers Canadian writers of young adult literature Canadian YouTubers Chinese emigrants to Canada Chinese Internet celebrities Chinese speculative fiction writers Cosplayers Hui people LGBT writers from China LGBT YouTubers Canadian non-binary writers Simon Fraser University alumni Writers from British Columbia Year of birth missing (living people) Canadian writers of Asian descent